The question that has
not been adequately addressed is Why Korah? Why should he be a ring-leader? The
text reports that he is a Levite through the priestly family of Kohath (Num
16:1), like Aaron’s family, but he was not an Aaronide. While one might get the
impression from his statement in 16:3—that all Israel is holy-that he was
advocating the abolition of a particular priesthood and promoting everyone to
be priests, it seems unlikely that as a Levite he would want to diminish his own
status. We are informed in 16:17-18 that Korah and his associates had censers
and incense. Why would he have an incense brazier unless he had exercised some
priestly service in Egypt prior to the exodus?
The question I am
trying to raise is whether there was some sort of Hebrew priesthood already
established in Egypt, in which case, might Koran have been one such cleric?
With the ascendancy of Aaron and his sons to serve as priests, the role of the
Levites was diminished (cf. Num 3:5-10; 4:1-48). Their duties would be carried
out “under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest” (Num 4:28 and
33). If indeed Korah and his cohorts were demoted by the new order and were now
forbidden to make offerings and burn incense in the sanctuary, one can see why
the uprising described in Num 16 occurred.
Other than having censers,
is there other evidence that Korah and his company had been priests in Egypt?
Korah (קֹרַח) means “bald head”
or “shaved head.” This name could be a descriptive name that points to a trait
especially of Egyptian w’b-priests. The Egyptian word w’b means “pure.”
Ritual and ceremonial purification was achieved by ablutions or incense
fumigation. A text in the tomb of the 18th-Dynasty vizier Ramose states: “Using
incense, pouring libations, purifying the ways (sw’b [the causative form
of the verb, “to make pure”]) to the necropolis” (James Hoffmeier, Sacred in
the Vocabulary of Ancient Egypt [OBO 59; Freiburg: Freiburg University
Press, 1985], 25-26). This passage occurs in the context of the funerary
procession of the deceased’s mummified remains to the necropolis.
W’b-priests, Denise Doxey
notes, were “a lower-ranked class of priests” that assisted in the ḥm ntr or
priest “in the maintenance of the temple” and assisted in the case for the cult
image in the sanctuary, but the w’b-priest could not enter the “innermost
sanctuary or come face to face with the gods image” Denise Doxey, “Priesthood,”
in OEAE 3.69). However, she observes that they did “handle sacred
objects and cult instruments. They were therefore required to observe strict
rules of purity, and they can be identified in some representations by their
shaved heads” (Ibid.). In his classic study of priests in ancient Egypt, Serge
Sauneron mentions the most visible characteristic of w’b-priests as “their
perfectly smooth heads” (Serge Sauneron, The Priests of Ancient Egypt [trans.
David Lorton; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000], 36-37).
Significantly, circumcision was also a custom practiced by the priests (Ibid.,
37). There are the priests who are shown carrying shrines of deities in the New
Kingdom scenes, and typically they are depicted with clean-shaven heads.
In the Egyptian
priestly system, one could work one’s way up the pecking order. The biography
of Bakenkhons, who served during the reign of Ramesses II, well illustrates how
a priest could be promoted. His cultic service began after 11 years of working
as a groom in the stables of Seti I (see KRI 3.298). Bakenkhons entered the
priestly ranks as a w’b-priest, where he septn 4 years before being
promoted to the position of “god’s father of Amum” (it ntr n[y] imn)
for 12 years. He was then promoted to be third priest (ḥm ntr) of
Amun for 15 years, followed by being advanced to the second priest of Amun, a
position he held for 12 years. Finally, he was elevated to be the first priest
of Amun or high priest, a royal appointment. This appointment lasted 27 years,
when he died in his early eighties. His son Roma or Roy followed the same steps
as his father, eventually becoming high priest.
Bakenkhon’s resumé
illustrates that a priest could advance through the ranks to the upper echelons.
Could it be that Korah had been a priest in the tradition of the w’b-priest
and was pressing Aaron for a promotion that would give him the status of a ḥm
ntr-priest (Heb. kōhēn) and direct access to the holy place, rather
than playing a secondary role?
My proposal is that
Korah had held some sort of priestly function prior to the establishment of the
new Yahweh cult in the wilderness, because of the reference to his shaved head
and his possessing an incense brazier, as did his Levite associates (Num 16:6,
17-18, 38). The word used here for censer is מַחְתָּה maḥtâ, which is sometimes rendered
“censer” (Lev 10:1, 12; Num 16:6, 17, 18) and sometimes “fire pan” or “tray”
(Exod 25:38; 37:23; Nu 4:9), usually made of bronze (Exod 38:3; Num 16:39) but
sometimes of gold (Exod 37:23; 1 Kgs 7:50; 2 Kgs 25:15). Since no Semitic
cognates for this word are offered in Koehler and Baumgartner (HALOT 572),
I previously suggested (Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, 216) a possible
Egyptian word, ḫt, that might stand behind Hebrew maḥtâ. Egyptian
ḫt means “fire,” and with a different determinative it is a word for “offering”
(Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, 182). The initial mem
is the preformative, which occurs regularly in Egyptian and Semitic languages
with nominal forms (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, §290).
Another point in
favor of my hypothesis that Korah had been a priest in Egypt is the fact that
one of Korah’s coconspirators in Num 16:1 is a man named On. He is a rather
mysterious figure, whose name only occurs here, and follows the Reubenite
leaders Dathan and Abiram. Gordon has suggested that these Reubenites were
challenging Moses’ secular leadership rather than Aaron’s cultic role (Gordon, “Compositeness,
Conflation and the Pentateuch,” 65). They felt slighted that the civil
leadership normally went to the firstborn, which Reuben was (gen 29:32; 49:3),
but Moses, a Levite, was taking charge (Jacob Milgrom, Numbers: The JPS
Torah Commentary [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990], 130;
Timothy Ashley, The Book of Numbers [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993],
303). Subsequent references to the Reubenite rebels only mention Dathan and
Abiram (e.g. Num 16:12, 24, 27). Philip Budd proposes omitting On from the text
“as a piece of dittography,” which explains his absence in subsequent
references to the other two men (Budd, Numbers, 180). This seems
unlikely to me because On’s patronymy is recorded (“son of Peleth”), meaning
one would have to delete “On, the son of Peleth.” It is hard to explain how וְאוֹן בֶּן־פֶּלֶת is a dittography
(from where?). The Septuagint shows no signs of such an omission. A better
accounting of On’s presence in the narrative is therefore required.
The name On (אוֹן ‘ôn) is the
same as the Egyptian city located toward the base of the Delta. The cult center
of the sun-god Re/Arum was located there; hence, from Hellenistic times it was called
Heliopolis as it is in the Septuagint (Gen 41:45, 50; 46:20). It might be
recalled that Joseph’s wife Asenath was the daughter of Potiphera (Appropriately,
the priest of the sun-god of On has a theophoric name, which uses the name of
the patron deity, Re. Potiphera follows the same name type at Putiel discussed
above. The name P3-di-p3-r’, which is thought to stand behind the Hebrew
writing Potiphera, is an attested name in Egypt [Ranke, Die ägyptischen
Personennamen, 1.102:11; Muchiki, Egyptian Proper Names and Loanwords,
221), the priest of On. Thus a direct connection between the Hebrews and the
cult center at On is evident. Participation in Egyptian solar worship may
explain why a man named On, who was not a Levite, would join a conspiracy
against Aaron the priest. Could it be that On had served as a priest among the
Reubenites? This might hint at his interests were more in line with Korah’s
than with Dathan’s and Abiram’s. (James K. Hoffmeier, “Egyptian Religious
Influence on the Early Hebrews,” in James K. Hoffmeier, Alan R. Millard, and
Gary A. Rendsburg, “Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt?”: Biblical, Archaeological,
and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives [Bulletin for
Biblical Research Supplements 13; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2016], 3-35,
here, pp. 28-31)
